• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.325-334
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• 2008

Statement of problem & Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a mouth guard material properties on the skull and brain when they were under impact loads on mandible. Material and methods: Two customized mouth protectors having different material propeerst ieach other were made for a female Korean who had no history of brain trauma, no cerebral diseases, nomal occlusion and natural dentition. The 3D finite element model of human skull and brain scanned by means of computed tomography was constructed. The FEM model of head was composed of 407,825 elements and 82,138 nodes, including skull, brain, maxilla, mandible, articular disc, teeth and mouth guard. The stress concentrations on maxillary teeth, maxilla and skull with two mouth guards were evaluated under oblique impact load of 800N onto mandibular 3 loading points for 0.1sec. And the brain relative displacement was compared in two different mouth guard materials under same condition. Result and Conclusion: The results were as follows; 1. In comparison of von Mises stress on maxillary teeth, a soft mouth guard material had significantly lower stress values on measuring point than a hard mouth protector materials (P < .05). 2. In comparison of von Mises stress on maxilla and skull, A soft mouth protector material had significantly lower stress values on measuring point than a hard mouth protector materials (P < .05). 3. For impact loads on mandible, there were more stress concentrated area on maxilla and skull with hard mouth guard than soft with mouth protector. 4. For impact loads on mandible, brain relative displacement had little relation with mouth guard material properties. In results of this study, soft mouth guard materials were superior to hard mouth guard materials for mandible impact loads for prevention of sports injuries. Although the results of this study were not enough to figure out the roles of needed mouth guard material properties for a human head, we got some knowledge of the pattern about stress concentration and distribution on maxilla and skull for impact loads with soft or hard mouth protector. More studies are needed to substantiate the relationship between the mouth guard materials and sports injuries.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.67-95
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the transference of trust process, an important factor to consumer's purchase decision-making. Even though several researchers have discussed the trust transference process, there is no research related to this concept. Specifically we have focused on the transference of trust from the retailer to low involvement private label (PL) products. PL products were chosen as transference of trust occurs under ambiguity due to lack of information about the product and their manufacturer. PL products provide relatively less information than national brand (NB) products. In addition, retailers have been rapidly expanding their PL product categories. To identify the theoretical and empirical limitations of prior studies, we discuss several theories explaining the transference of trust: 'Balance theory' and 'availability heuristic' in transference of cognitive trust; 'affective transference' and 'affect as information' in transference of affective trust. An empirical test was performed. A self completion questionnaire was developed and administered to a convenience sample of PL users. 206 usable questionnaire were received. The results show that the transference of trust plays a mediating role linking the retailer to the manufacturer and to the product. Although our model, which included the transference process of trust as a mediating effect, did not improve the competitive model, the coefficients of the respective paths were found to be better. This study confirms the transference of cognitive trust from the retailer to both the manufacturer and the product, but not for affective trust. We offer the explanation that PL products may tend to have affective trust resulting from brand familiarity but not to their PL manufacturers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.80-81
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• 2012

Recently, one of the critical issues in the etching processes of the nanoscale devices is to achieve ultra-high aspect ratio contact (UHARC) profile without anomalous behaviors such as sidewall bowing, and twisting profile. To achieve this goal, the fluorocarbon plasmas with major advantage of the sidewall passivation have been used commonly with numerous additives to obtain the ideal etch profiles. However, they still suffer from formidable challenges such as tight limits of sidewall bowing and controlling the randomly distorted features in nanoscale etching profile. Furthermore, the absence of the available plasma simulation tools has made it difficult to develop revolutionary technologies to overcome these process limitations, including novel plasma chemistries, and plasma sources. As an effort to address these issues, we performed a fluorocarbon surface kinetic modeling based on the experimental plasma diagnostic data for silicon dioxide etching process under inductively coupled C4F6/Ar/O2 plasmas. For this work, the SiO2 etch rates were investigated with bulk plasma diagnostics tools such as Langmuir probe, cutoff probe and Quadruple Mass Spectrometer (QMS). The surface chemistries of the etched samples were measured by X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer. To measure plasma parameters, the self-cleaned RF Langmuir probe was used for polymer deposition environment on the probe tip and double-checked by the cutoff probe which was known to be a precise plasma diagnostic tool for the electron density measurement. In addition, neutral and ion fluxes from bulk plasma were monitored with appearance methods using QMS signal. Based on these experimental data, we proposed a phenomenological, and realistic two-layer surface reaction model of SiO2 etch process under the overlying polymer passivation layer, considering material balance of deposition and etching through steady-state fluorocarbon layer. The predicted surface reaction modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental data. With the above studies of plasma surface reaction, we have developed a 3D topography simulator using the multi-layer level set algorithm and new memory saving technique, which is suitable in 3D UHARC etch simulation. Ballistic transports of neutral and ion species inside feature profile was considered by deterministic and Monte Carlo methods, respectively. In case of ultra-high aspect ratio contact hole etching, it is already well-known that the huge computational burden is required for realistic consideration of these ballistic transports. To address this issue, the related computational codes were efficiently parallelized for GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) computing, so that the total computation time could be improved more than few hundred times compared to the serial version. Finally, the 3D topography simulator was integrated with ballistic transport module and etch reaction model. Realistic etch-profile simulations with consideration of the sidewall polymer passivation layer were demonstrated.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.381-396
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• 2017

Understanding species distribution plays an important role in conservation as well as evolutionary biology. In this study, we applied a species distribution model to predict hotspot areas and habitat characteristics for endangered herpetofauna species in South Korea: the Korean Crevice Salamander (Karsenia koreana), Suweon-tree frog (Hyla suweonensis), Gold-spotted pond frog (Pelophylax chosenicus), Narrow-mouthed toad (Kaloula borealis), Korean ratsnake (Elaphe schrenckii), Mongolian racerunner (Eremias argus), Reeve's turtle (Mauremys reevesii) and Soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis). The Kori salamander (Hynobius yangi) and Black-headed snake (Sibynophis chinensis) were excluded from the analysis due to insufficient sample size. The results showed that the altitude was the most important environmental variable for their distribution, and the altitude at which these species were distributed correlated with the climate of that region. The predicted distribution area derived from the species distribution modelling adequately reflected the observation site used in this study as well as those reported in preceding studies. The average AUC value of the eigh species was relatively high ($0.845{\pm}0.08$), while the average omission rate value was relatively low ($0.087{\pm}0.01$). Therefore, the species overlaying model created for the endangered species is considered successful. When merging the distribution models, it was shown that five species shared their habitats in the coastal areas of Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheongnam-do, which are the western regions of the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, we suggest that protection should be a high priority in these area, and our overall results may serve as essential and fundamental data for the conservation of endangered amphibian and reptiles in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 2020

Land use in watersheds has been shown to be a major driving factor in determining the status of the water quality of streams. In this light, scientists have been investigating the roles of riparian vegetation on the relationships between land use in watersheds and the associated stream water quality. Numerous studies reported that riparian vegetation could alleviate the adverse effects caused by land use in watersheds and on stream water quality through various hydrological, biochemical and ecological mechanisms. However, this concept has been criticized as the true effects of riparian vegetation must be assessed by comprehensive models that mimic real environmental settings. This study aimed to estimate a comprehensive structural equation model integrating topography, land use, and characteristics of riparian vegetation. We used water quality data from the Nakdong River system monitored under the National Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program (NAEMP) of the Korean Ministry of Environment (MOE). Also, riparian vegetation data and land use data were extracted from the Land Use/Land Cover map (LULC) produced by the MOE. The number of structural equation models (SEMs) were estimated in Amos of IBM SPSS. Study results revealed that land use was determined by elevation, and developed areas within a watershed significantly increased the concentration of Total Nitrogen (TN) in streams and LDI in riparian vegetation. On the contrary, developed areas significantly reduced LPI and PLAND. At the same time, PLAND and LDI significantly reduced the concentration of TN in streams. Thus, it was clear that developed areas in watersheds had both a direct and an indirect impact on the concentration of TN in streams, and spatial pattern and the amount of vegetation of riparian vegetation could significantly alleviate the negative impacts of developed areas on TN concentration in streams. To enhance stream water quality, reducing developed areas in a watershed is critical for long-term watershed management plans, restoration patterns for riparian vegetation could be immediately implemented since riparian areas were less developed than most other watersheds.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.73-87
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• 2018

A variety of micro meteorological variables such as air temperature, wind, solar radiation and latent heat at Gwangneung forests (conifer and broadleaved forests) and AWS (Automated Weather Station) of Pocheon urban area were used to quantify the air temperature reduction effect of forests, which is considered to be an eco-friendly solution for reducing the urban heat island intensity during summer. In June, July and August of 2016 and 2017, the average maximum air temperature differences between above and below canopy of forests, and between the forests and urban areas were $-1.9^{\circ}C$ and $-3.4^{\circ}C$ respectively, and they occurred at 17:00. However, there was no difference between conifer and broadleaved forests. The effect of air temperature reduction by the forests was positively correlated with accumulated evapotranspiration and solar radiation from 14:00 to 17:00 and showed a negative correlation with wind speed. We have developed a model to quantify the effect of air temperature reduction by forests using these variables. The nighttime air temperature reduction effect by forests was due to the generation of cold air from radiative cooling and the air temperature inversion phenomenon that occurs when the generated cold air moves down the side of mountain. The model was evaluated in Seoul by using 28 AWSs. The evaluation shows that the air temperature of each district in Seoul was negatively correlated with the area and size of the surrounding tall vegetation that drives vegetation evapotranspiration during the day. During the night, however, the size of the surrounding tall vegetation and the elevations of nearby mountains were the main influencing factors on the air temperature. Our research emphasizes the importance of the establishment and management of urban forests and the composition of wind roads from mountains for urban air temperature reduction.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.235-243
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• 2007

Hepatocellular carcinoma is significant worldwide public health problem with an estimated annually mortality of 1,000,000 people. Radiofrequency (RF) ablation is an interventional technique that in recent years has come to be used for treatment of the hepatocellualr carcinoma, by destructing tumor tissues in high temperatures. Numerous studies have been attempted to prove excellence of RF ablation and to improve its efficiency by various methods. However, the attempts are sometimes paradox to advantages of a minimum invasive characteristic and an operative simplicity in RF ablation. The aim of the current study is, therefore, to suggest an improved RF ablation technique by identifying an optimum RF pattern, which is one of important factors capable of controlling the extent of high temperature region in lossless of the advantages of RF ablation. Three-dimensional finite element (FE) model was developed and validated comparing with the results reported by literature. Four representative Rf patterns (sine, square, exponential, and simulated RF waves), which were corresponding to currents fed during simulated RF ablation, were investigated. Following parameters for each RF pattern were analyzed to identify which is the most optimum in eliminating effectively tumor tissues. 1) maximum temperature, 2) a degree of alteration of maximum temperature in a constant time range (30-40 second), 3) a domain of temperature over $47^{\circ}C$ isothermal temperature (IT), and 4) a domain inducing over 63% cell damage. Here, heat transfer characteristics within the tissues were determined by Bioheat Governing Equation. Developed FE model showed 90-95% accuracy approximately in prediction of maximum temperature and domain of interests achieved during RF ablation. Maximum temperatures for sine, square, exponential, and simulated RF waves were $69.0^{\circ}C,\;66.9^{\circ}C,\;65.4^{\circ}C,\;and\;51.8^{\circ}C$, respectively. While the maximum temperatures were decreased in the constant time range, average time intervals for sine, square, exponential, and simulated RE waves were $0.49{\pm}0.14,\;1.00{\pm}0.00,\;1.65{\pm}0.02,\;and\;1.66{\pm}0.02$ seconds, respectively. Average magnitudes of the decreased maximum temperatures in the time range were $0.45{\pm}0.15^{\circ}C$ for sine wave, $1.93{\pm}0.02^{\circ}C$ for square wave, $2.94{\pm}0.05^{\circ}C$ for exponential wave, and $1.53{\pm}0.06^{\circ}C$ for simulated RF wave. Volumes of temperature domain over $47^{\circ}C$ IT for sine, square, exponential, and simulated RF waves were 1480mm3, 1440mm3, 1380mm3, and 395mm3, respectively. Volumes inducing over 63% cell damage for sine, square, exponential, and simulated RF waves were 114mm3, 62mm3, 17mm3, and 0mm3, respectively. These results support that applying sine wave during RF ablation may be generally the most optimum in destructing effectively tumor tissues, compared with other RF patterns.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.12-16
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• 2012

Purpose : In conventional PET image reconstruction, iterative reconstruction methods such as OSEM (Ordered Subsets Expectation Maximization) have now generally replaced traditional analytic methods such as filtered back-projection. This includes improvements in components of the system model geometry, fully 3D scatter and low noise randoms estimates. SharpIR algorithm is to improve PET image contrast to noise by incorporating information about the PET detector response into the 3D iterative reconstruction algorithm. The aim of this study is evaluation of SharpIR reconstruction method in PET/CT. Materials and Methods: For the measurement of detector response for the spatial resolution, a capillary tube was filled with FDG and scanned at varying distances from the iso-center (5, 10, 15, 20 cm). To measure image quality for contrast recovery, the NEMA IEC body phantom (Data Spectrum Corporation, Hillsborough, NC) with diameters of 1, 13, 17 and 22 for simulating hot and 28 and 37 mm for simulating cold lesions. A solution of 5.4 kBq/mL of $^{18}F$-FDG in water was used as a radioactive background obtaining a lesion of background ratio of 4.0. Images were reconstructed with VUE point HD and VUE point HD using SharpIR reconstruction algorithm. For the clinical evaluation, a whole body FDG scan acquired and to demonstrate contrast recovery, ROIs were drawn on a metabolic hot spot and also on a uniform region of the liver. Images were reconstructed with function of varying iteration number (1~10). Results: The result of increases axial distance from iso-center, full width at half maximum (FWHM) is also increasing in VUE point HD reconstruction image. Even showed an increasing distances constant FWHM. VUE point HD with SharpIR than VUE point HD showed improves contrast recovery in phantom and clinical study. Conclusion: By incorporating more information about the detector system response, the SharpIR algorithm improves the accuracy of underlying model used in VUE point HD. SharpIR algorithm improve spatial resolution for a line source in air, and improves contrast recovery at equivalent noise levels in phantoms and clinical studies. Therefore, SharpIR algorithm can be applied as through a longitudinal study will be useful in clinical.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.24-29
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• 2013

In the present study, the effects of prebiotics and prebiotics+probiotics on intestinal microflora and fermentation products were evaluated in a pig in vitro fermentation model. The substrates used in this study were iso-malto oligosaccharide (IMO), partially digested chicory-inulin (CI), raffinose (RA), and cyclodextrin (CD) as prebiotics and Lactobacillus reiteri as probiotics. For a pig in vitro fermentation, the experimental diet for growing pigs was predigested using digestive enzymes secreted by small intestine and this hydrolyzed diet was mixed with a buffer solution containing 5% fresh swine feces. The mixture was then incubated with either prebiotics or prebiotics+probiotics for 24 h. Samples were taken at 24 h, and viable counts of microflora, gas, pH, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) were analyzed. The viable count of Enterobacteriaceae was significantly decreased (p<0.001) in all treatments containing prebiotics and prebiotics+probiotics when compared to the control. However, the number of lactic acid bacteria increased in the prebiotics and prebiotics+probiotics treatment. The pH values in the fermentation fluid decreased in all treatments when compared to the control, and their effects were greater in the prebiotics+probiotics group than prebiotics group. Fermentation with prebiotics resulted in a reduction in malodorous compounds such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and skatole when compared to the prebiotics+probiotics group. Short-chain fatty acid production was also higher for treatment with prebiotics+probiotics than treatment with prebiotics. In conclusion, the results of this study demonstrated that fermentation with prebiotics was effective in reducing the formation of malodorous compounds and prebiotics+probiotics was effective in increasing lactic acid bacteria and SCFA and reducing the pH. Moreover, further studies will be needed to determine whether the results observed in the in vitro model would occur in pigs that ingest these prebiotics or probiotics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.207-228
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• 2007

Measuring Information Technology(IT) organizations' activities have been limited to mainly measure financial indicators for a long time. However, according to the multifarious functions of Information System, a number of researches have been done for the new trends on measurement methodologies that come with financial measurement as well as new measurement methods. Especially, the researches on IT Balanced Scorecard(BSC), concept from BSC measuring IT activities have been done as well in recent years. BSC provides more advantages than only integration of non-financial measures in a performance measurement system. The core of BSC rests on the cause-and-effect relationships between measures to allow prediction of value chain performance measures to allow prediction of value chain performance measures, communication, and realization of the corporate strategy and incentive controlled actions. More recently, BSC proponents have focused on the need to tie measures together into a causal chain of performance, and to test the validity of these hypothesized effects to guide the development of strategy. Kaplan and Norton[2001] argue that one of the primary benefits of the balanced scorecard is its use in gauging the success of strategy. Norreklit[2000] insist that the cause-and-effect chain is central to the balanced scorecard. The cause-and-effect chain is also central to the IT BSC. However, prior researches on relationship between information system and enterprise strategies as well as connection between various IT performance measurement indicators are not so much studied. Ittner et al.[2003] report that 77% of all surveyed companies with an implemented BSC place no or only little interest on soundly modeled cause-and-effect relationships despite of the importance of cause-and-effect chains as an integral part of BSC. This shortcoming can be explained with one theoretical and one practical reason[Blumenberg and Hinz, 2006]. From a theoretical point of view, causalities within the BSC method and their application are only vaguely described by Kaplan and Norton. From a practical consideration, modeling corporate causalities is a complex task due to tedious data acquisition and following reliability maintenance. However, cause-and effect relationships are an essential part of BSCs because they differentiate performance measurement systems like BSCs from simple key performance indicator(KPI) lists. KPI lists present an ad-hoc collection of measures to managers but do not allow for a comprehensive view on corporate performance. Instead, performance measurement system like BSCs tries to model the relationships of the underlying value chain in cause-and-effect relationships. Therefore, to overcome the deficiencies of causal modeling in IT BSC, sound and robust causal modeling approaches are required in theory as well as in practice for offering a solution. The propose of this study is to suggest critical success factors(CSFs) and KPIs for measuring performance for IT organizations and empirically validate the casual relationships between those CSFs. For this purpose, we define four perspectives of BSC for IT organizations according to Van Grembergen's study[2000] as follows. The Future Orientation perspective represents the human and technology resources needed by IT to deliver its services. The Operational Excellence perspective represents the IT processes employed to develop and deliver the applications. The User Orientation perspective represents the user evaluation of IT. The Business Contribution perspective captures the business value of the IT investments. Each of these perspectives has to be translated into corresponding metrics and measures that assess the current situations. This study suggests 12 CSFs for IT BSC based on the previous IT BSC's studies and COBIT 4.1. These CSFs consist of 51 KPIs. We defines the cause-and-effect relationships among BSC CSFs for IT Organizations as follows. The Future Orientation perspective will have positive effects on the Operational Excellence perspective. Then the Operational Excellence perspective will have positive effects on the User Orientation perspective. Finally, the User Orientation perspective will have positive effects on the Business Contribution perspective. This research tests the validity of these hypothesized casual effects and the sub-hypothesized causal relationships. For the purpose, we used the Partial Least Squares approach to Structural Equation Modeling(or PLS Path Modeling) for analyzing multiple IT BSC CSFs. The PLS path modeling has special abilities that make it more appropriate than other techniques, such as multiple regression and LISREL, when analyzing small sample sizes. Recently the use of PLS path modeling has been gaining interests and use among IS researchers in recent years because of its ability to model latent constructs under conditions of nonormality and with small to medium sample sizes(Chin et al., 2003). The empirical results of our study using PLS path modeling show that the casual effects in IT BSC significantly exist partially in our hypotheses.